


A Rainbow and a Grocery List

by afullrevolution



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Drag Queens, Fluff, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Self-Discovery, Stiles!POV, first chapter pre-relationship, moves from high school to college graduation, normality, second chapter Sheriff!POV, third chapter slow build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 21:00:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afullrevolution/pseuds/afullrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scarred and scared, Stiles had to learn to be who is - to be comfortable in his own skin - before he could figure out what he wants.<br/>Once he figures out what he wants, however, he also has to determine the best way to ask for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Rainbow

**Author's Note:**

> I think that this is pretty much cannon compliant. Except, you know, I don't know if they will every take my fashion suggestions. 
> 
> Warnings for language and non-beta'd-ness.

**Blue**

Somehow, Stiles' senior year of high school, with everything so quiet and so very fractured, he ended up spending most of his free time with a group of drag queens and Deaton. 

The first he liked, the second he had severe reservations about. But, once he'd started using magic, knew about it, he didn't really want to turn away, didn’t think he could look away. Didn’t think he could stop seeing it in the mocking blue of the sky. It seemed like it was advisable to learn something about this shit if he didn't want to inadvertently cause more damage than he had already done so many times. 

Besides, lessons kept him away from pack training. They kept him busy so he didn't have to wonder if he was welcome, what with Scott's outright disavowal of Derek. Stiles didn't agree with it, didn't think division was wise, didn't think that two packs in Beacon Hill would ever be wise. But it was Scott. So he stayed away, kept his head down so that he didn't have to try and balance between the two, didn’t have to think about the shuttered looks they gave him in school, didn't have to see their eyes travel over his slowly healing bruises, the pucker of a scar on his right cheek, and the slight limp in his gate when he got tired. And most of all, as long as he was busy, he didn't have to admit that he missed Derek.

Hanging out with the Ladies though. That was amazing. The group was a set of rather fabulous people and Stiles adored them. 

Pearl and Ginger particularly. They had taken one look at him in the whole aftermath at the end of that summer, gently touched the bruises across his face and then Ginger had crushed him to her jasmine scented bosom, told him that sometimes shit happened, but _he_ was _wonderful_. 

Shit, but he had needed to hear that.

Pearl added that he was joining her self-defense class. She wasn’t going to take a no for an answer, no equivocation either, because he clearly needed to learn to take better care of himself and to stop jumping at shadows. So none of this, "'I'm fine' crap" they told him. They could see he wasn’t fine. They could see he felt blue. 

But they told him he would be. He would reclaim ownership of his own body; he would feel like his skin was his own again. They knew all too well what it felt like to not be at home in your own skin.

Stiles may have sobbed in their arms and then allowed them to show him how to use foundation and concealer to cover the bruises, to make his cheek bones stand out, and his eyes pop. The resulting image in the mirror made him squirm a bit, but Ginger assured him that he looked amazing. "All the men will swoon – but that isn’t even the point sweetie – the point is that you should _feel_ beautiful, even if it means trying out and deciding against my stunning bright blue eye shadow," she told him as she handed him a rag for just that. 

**Green**

So he may have let his hair grow longer and quit lacrosse in favor of taking self-defense. He let the Ladies talk him into trying on the feathers and the skirts, into seeing what he thought of pushup bras and cleavage. Into seeing who he wanted to be.

Stiles couldn't quite say that he particularly liked the sequins, but the feather boas and glitter were things he could whole-heartedly support. He found his taste didn't run to miniskirts and he preferred his silhouette with a flat chest, but that there was something about having waxed legs that was nice. Pearl laughed, ran her hand up his leg and told him to try wearing silk because the feel of that material against such silky smooth skin? She fanned herself and winked. Told him all the Ladies were green with envy.

But more than the clothes and the make-up, he loved the group. He adored their energy, loved the hyper-emoting and tendency toward excessive use of color and lights. He adored the continual rainbow of colors that cascaded around him. 

It was almost like being given permission live loud and wild among a group of people who would scream your name in support and then made sure you got home safely at the end of the night. It felt like they made it their mission to chase the blues away. Or perhaps just to find a more peace shade. Tranquil instead of gutting. 

If the process, if the company, also led to him learning to match colors and apply makeup, how to freaking accessorize, well, he was smart and could figure out how to apply himself. The shrieks that he should _never_ wear green eyeliner – only to use it as a base for his face power (“to much will make you look ill, but just enough sweetie and it counteracts the red, makes your skin look smoother”) were certainly enough to sink some lessons deep into his brain.

At first, if he had been asked, Stiles might have said that the colors and accessorizing were just useful. They helped with warding. It was helpful, after all, to know how to make something that he could wear without getting too much attention. While the scarves he tried out seemed to draw attention regardless, they were definitely better than a giant octagon of welded silver around his neck with a vial of blood in the center.

 **Yellow**  
But really, while the accessorizing did help with the whole magic thing, he loved it. The process of relearning his own body and being able to laugh at himself when he wrapped a bright yellow boa around his neck. 

It was amazing, luxuriating, to be comfortable in his own skin again. It was almost startlingly incredible to be relaxed while being loud and exuberant. That he could be easy singing along with the group at the top of his lungs while they dressed and painted each other's faces and nails.

The colors and the excitement began to bled over into his daily life in some ways. It brought a bit of sunshine, an exuberant yellow light, into his everyday. 

He'd learned to apply mascara and found that skinny jeans and button up shirts made him look slender instead of simply gawky. He learned that carrying a stick of eye liner meant that he got to draw wards on himself as needed, when he started panicking, it helped him pull back, feel protected. He thought maybe he was more of a Wonder Woman instead of a Batman after all. He designed warded gauntlets for himself one day as a joke.

He may have begun to wear bold colors and sort of loved the looks he got when he wore the brightest, most garish pair of yellow-ocher pants he could find. 

Because if it was one thing he learned from all of this, was that it was mother fucking ok to be exactly who he was, whoever the hell that was. 

Because, it didn't matter if you wanted to be a man who loved pink feathers or a woman in studded suspenders, society was cruel to try to divide and parcel, to try to tell people what their tastes should be instead of letting them paint their bodies violet if they damn-well felt like it. Why should that be any stranger than the pink mystery-meat-byproduct that some companies were trying to sell for school lunches? 

**Orange**

But there was still an ache regarding the whole werewolf issue. He barely saw any of them – from either pack – outside of school, didn't know what to say when he did. So he just grinned cheekily when Jackson mocked his eye shadow or Lydia raised her eyebrow in distaste at some of his early attempts at scarves. When Isaac looked scared and Scott just pretended none of it had happened. Didn't ask what happened. It felt like they were ignoring the flashing gold lights all around them.

But then Scott also wasn’t fazed when Stiles chose to dress as Ziggy Stardust for Halloween. He complimented the Ladies work on his face. The care they had taken in getting the lines of the shapes just right. Stiles didn't know whether he wanted to kiss Scott for accepting him without a blink or if he wanted kick Scott in the balls for willfully ignoring everything else. Stiles settled for loving him like the brother he had always been. 

**Red**

It took time, but the day, that Stiles showed up in short sleeves for the first time in ages, when he came to school with charcoal eyes, a bright boa to match his tight red pants (the Ladies told him red was a good look on him), a white t-shirt and deep orange suspenders, Lydia actually came over and sat across from him. 

She stared at Stiles' scars, looking at them as if they have answers embedded in them, her hand brushing over her side where he knew her own network of marks were hidden. 

"Not all of those are recent,” was all she said in way of greeting. 

He held out an arm to her and told her that they were "the story of my life on my skin." He pointed to different spots on his arm, the different marks from all the things that had hacked their way into his skin to make sure he could never forget, "car crash (mother), potential melanoma (genetics), werewolf claws (Scott), Allison's granddad" he told her as he ran his fingers over the old discolorations and newer ridges. 

There was a beat of silence. He hated silence. He hated the drawn out pain of struggling with what to say, or thinking about the right words. So he started talking instead, told her he was sorry about it all. For not treating her like the person she wanted to be. With the respect she deserved. For trying to force her into his image of her. Not that it helped to apologize, he knew that. But words were all he had. 

Lydia smiled grimly back at him, told him "Forgiveness is s dirty word, nothing in life is free. You are going to pay by studying with me for finals and taking me to your self-defense class. We might eventually call the debt settled, but even then, you will never lie to me again." 

Stiles nodded, held a pinky out to her, told her that he promised as long as she would let him do her hair now and again. "There are some things I want to try, but my hair just isn't long enough." 

She asked him days later as they proofread each other's college applications what his goal in life was, if he knew who he was. Stiles grinned at her, told her he didn't know in the long run, but at the moment it was "about being who I want to be and not hiding. Bob Marley may be a problematic icon for any of the LGBTQ community, but man, I sort of want to be a rainbow too," he said, snapping his rainbow suspenders with a smile. 


	2. Cupboards are bare, but the freezer sure isn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's viewpoint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My notes for this were in much better shape than I remembered. So, it gets added as a middle chapter.

**Empty Cupboards**

There was a month after Stiles came home from the hospital in which John had been paralyzed with worry. That period where Stiles had barely spoken, walked with a slight limp, and looked so vacant. When he’d dropped lacrosse without an explanation and Scott was barely around. And then, as if from the blue, his son stared showing up with fake eyelashes and brought home a full length mirror to spend hours in sitting cross-legged in front of it “to get the hang of eye-liner”. It was evidently “freaking hard”. 

John couldn't say he was pleased when Stiles started regularly wearing makeup, but the sparkly shawls really took the cake. But in the scheme of things, he also couldn't say it particularly mattered. Just not his taste. So he kept his mouth shut. 

Particularly because it seemed to be what Stiles needed. He'd started going out again, started pulling himself together. Even if the shape he took wasn't the same as he’d worn before. Even if he sometimes barely recognized the son who tripped downstairs. This one was, in some ways, even more outrageous, louder, harder to pin down. 

John couldn't say he was anything but surprised the first time Stiles came home wrapped in a feather boa with rhinestones carefully arranged around his eyes. He glowed, laughed, and smelled like perfume and just a bit of alcohol. And he told John at length about lighting and the fun of costumes. 

But Stiles also talked again about college and applications, talked about a future that John hadn’t realized had been missing, even while he started using scarves like they were his new favorite accessory. John thought at first perhaps it was to hide new marks, new bruises that couldn’t be explained, but Stiles would casually twitch them off and on again, never tried to make sure to cover up any spot in particular. The new bruises that this Stiles did come home with, were accompanied by laughter and commentary about self defense classes.

Those marks made John less uncomfortable than the firearms training that Stiles expressed interest in taking. But he signed him up and took him down himself. Taught him how to site his target and line up the shot. It bothered him a little bit how very seriously Stiles took it, but could he blame Stiles when he had always done his best to instill gun safety into Stiles' head?

John didn't know what to think. But (so many ‘buts’, so much hesitation) the acceptance letters included Stanford and his son talked about coming home for the weekends to see him and his friends.

John felt like he had a sliver of a better handle on all of this again even if he still knew, just knew that Stiles was leaving out huge lumps of information. He tracked Stiles' cell phone's GPS and found that Stiles visited the Martin house, that he visited Scott. Visited the Jungle with much more frequency than John had expected (John sat in his patrol car and watched as Stiles hugged the Ladies). And someone in an apartment complex across town. 

Stiles’ whole senior year was an adjustment, a process of trying desperately to understand. Part of it was guilt, he knew. He felt like maybe because he hadn't listened, he'd held his son back. Been the cause of the rift. 

It was just so foreign to him, because what did you do with a son who went from shaving his head and playing rugby to wearing body glitter and taking self defense classes? Talking about gender equality and suggesting donations to local women's shelters? 

So John donated money and found himself almost sighing in relief when Stiles slowly stripped away the heavy layers of shirts he’d worn ever since his mother’s car accident (now outstripped by those newer, still unexplained scars). He felt lighter when Stiles started wearing t-shirts again, even if those hideous scars were bared to the world. Because his son was moving again instead of hunching. He was bouncing down the stairs, flying out the door leaving glitter in his wake.

The first day Stiles came home in a tank top, glitter sprinkled over his shoulders, John wondered if this Stiles wasn't for the better. He was surprised into a smile, and Stiles grinned back at him, wrapped him in a hug that had John walking around during his evening shift with a slight spring in his step and sparkles all over his uniform.

He apologized over dinner a week later for not having taken Stiles seriously back when Stiles had tried to tell him. He realized that that must have been a strain. Stiles hugged him again, tight and hard. The look Stiles gave him proclaimed adoration. But there was something else there too. Something that said this it wasn't everything. 

Something that meant John started finding carefully wrapped home-made portions for one wrapped carefully in the refrigerator and packaged in the freezer even before Stiles were away for college. Despite the fact that the kitchen that was clearly seeing less use, despite the fact that the grocery list on the wall was filled out with increasing infrequency. It was like Stiles had stopped using it as frequently. As if he only really was home on the nights when John was home.

The meals and the empty cupboards continued even after Stiles started college. By then, it had started to feel normal.

Stiles’ sophomore year, John looked at his 19 year old son and realized that he hadn’t really talked to his son in three years. Hadn't told him how proud he was of him. 

And even if he couldn't understand the mascara and the blush, he cleared his throat one evening while Stiles talked about the Vagina Monologues and the perpetuation of the glass ceiling, and told him that he was proud of him. That he wanted Stiles to know that. Even if he didn't get the ... pink and the skirts. 

Stiles looked thrilled, blushed red, and told him that sometimes you don't have to understand, sometimes you just have to accept. Cost benefit analysis. Is what you get worth what you don't. 

Stiles was definitely worth it.


	3. A running grocery list

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles tries to find out how much he can ask for - how much is too much - and he always says thank you.

**Coffee**

What Stiles didn't expect was the time he spent at Derek's apartment as the year drew to a close. Didn't think it would be easy when he showed up in a bright yellow shirt emblazoned with the Batman insignia and skinny jeans, with an offering of bread, salt, and wine and the announcement that he needed a place for his basic magic supplies that wasn't under his dad's snooping nose (because as much as he loved his dad, the guy was still a cop). He hadn't thought that Derek would just open the door and let him in. Stiles wondered if he would have done it earlier if he had known that he could breeze into Derek's flat without using his shoulders or putting his foot in the door.

Stiles tried to lay out an agreement with him, a contract of sorts, but Derek told him it was "fine". To "do what he needed to". Stiles decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth and told Derek that he was wonderful, rather a spectacular shining light to them all. Really, truly, seriously. So open and giving. Derek raised an eyebrow in response, looked torn between snorting incredulously and taking back his blanket permission. 

So Stiles kissed his cheek and scurried into the kitchen to unwrap his beautiful mortar and pestle and started telling the empty kitten the story of a girl who was too clever for her own good. While he arranged jars of powders and sticks of cinnamon, he told about how her problems started with a loving father and a mortar made of pure gold without a pestle and ended with a king sleeping it off in a shack. He figured they could hear, after all, and it calmed him down to talk, stilled the nerves of being here - the metaphorical here - again. In another, colorless space that didn't feel like a home. He hoped to hell it smelled like a home even if he couldn’t see it. 

He started showing up now and again. It took weeks of Derek throwing the open the door at his knock, before Derek finally told him in a just let himself the fuck in. It's not like they didn't know he was coming long before he got to the door. 

Isaac got used to him being around, Stiles in turn got used to Peter being there constantly and hovering just out of reach, until the day when he slapped down a fashion magazine next to Stiles and pointed to a series of shirts that "would accentuate his frame." After that, they developed a tenuous peace. One that became almost friendly when it turned out that Peter could make a mean pot of Turkish coffee. Evidently, just because you couldn't get the caffeine buzz without mainlining the stuff, didn't mean you couldn't "appreciate flavor". 

Stiles did appreciate that the apartment was never out of coffee. Even if Derek mumbled something about coffee making boring people more boring then looked at him and sighed something about that being a problem Stiles would never have. 

Stiles threw back his head and laughed, fingers brushed Derek’s arm as he told him that that was perhaps the best compliment Stiles had ever received. He thought he might prefer to be anything but boring. When Derek flushed, Stiles threw caution to the wind, threw his arm over Derek’s shoulders in a half hug and told him that “dude, you aren’t boring either. I don’t think life with would ever could be” he added as he moved his arm and wiped the tears from his eyes. 

**Sugar and Spice**

Going to college really only changed so much. He had a dorm room – he even technically lived there – but he drove back to Beacon Hill every weekend for lessons with Deaton, to see his dad for excruciatingly stilted conversations, and to work his weekend job assisting with lights at the club. He mostly stayed with various friends, sometimes with Pearl, rarely at his dad's place. 

If Lydia was in town, he crashed at her place, brushed out her long hair and told her everything. Because after keeping his mouth shut for so long, he made sure to keep the can of worms open. He sort of figured that if it was never shut, then snake couldn’t pop out of the can. You can't undo the past, but you can sure as fuck try to make up for it. Besides, who could they talk to but each other? 

Although, really, Stiles was starting to wonder if he could also talk to Derek. Because, on rare occasions, when Lydia wasn’t in town, when Pearl was taking a date home, and his dad had a night shift, Stiles drove to Derek's and fell asleep on the couch, course work spread out around him. Because, he told Derek unasked “mixing it up keeps my life interesting. Variety, after all, was the spice of life. Otherwise I might atrophy and” he added with a wink “we’ve already established that you aren’t boring.” 

What he didn't expect was that that colorless flat would start to feel so comfortable. It was just nice to wake up on a Sunday morning to people – to Isaac shyly requesting cardamom pancakes and coffee perking (a dark French roast). It was just nice to feel so welcome. Nice, however hard for Stiles to wrap his head around, that Derek seemed to think that the he had free use of the apartment. Even nicer that Derek certainly seemed to be encouraging his presence, what with buying the good maple syrup. What with the shifty-eyed look Derek got when Stiles commented, linking his hand, that if Derek kept stocking things like this syrup, Stiles would never leave. 

That episode sort of colored how Stiles understood what happened next. How things started appearing around the apartment. 

It was the little things at first. Things that could be chalked off as good house management. Things that could almost be gifts, but could also just be practical good sense. Like, when Stiles used all of the fresh basil and lamented under his breath that he hadn't bought a big enough plant. How the dried stuff just wasn’t as flavorful. The next weekend, there was an enormous pot of the stuff positioned in a sunbeam on the kitchen counter with a note saying not to use it all at once. 

Stiles gushed, used his eyeliner to draw marks around the edge of the pot for vigor and growth. Talked about painting it to "brighten up the room". 

Stiles was mixing his own paint on a glass cutting board with bits of turmeric and ground charcoal when Derek arrived home. The mess on his hands didn’t stop him from tumbling over to Derek and throwing his arms around him. He got streaks of orange across Derek's back from his hands and then purposely gave him stripes across his cheeks "for balance". Derek pinned him against the wall in return and, while Stiles laughed about "old times", spread globs of red clay around his eye to make a star. 

Stiles wore the star out that night with the Ladies and grinned the whole evening.

There were more potted herbs around after that.

**Salt and Bread**

It didn’t take many of Stiles pouted comments and frustrated remarks about being out of something before a pad of paper that appeared pinned to refrigerator. One of those hideously kitschy, pre-printed shopping lists that had rows and lines for shit. This one had kittens chasing rainbows. 

Stiles loved it. Loved the pale boldness of the look, was thrilled by how it clashed with everything else in the sparse kitchen. He gushed over it, said he adored it, told the air that it was perfect. He told Derek to his face that at that moment he was of the firm and unshakable opinion that Derek was amazing, couldn't help but be mad about someone who got him. 

Stiles would later swear that that list started changing things, shifted his interactions with the space, with Derek. Because he took it as permission, both to speak and to ask. 

He started small with the list. Started with things that the group could use. That would benefit. Necessities. The breads and salts against hunger and for savor. For protection and flavor. He would make a note (increasingly with commentary) when they needed more sandwich bread, about how he'd used up all the salt again and would prefer the pink Himalayan salt because it had enough polyhalite to help again trolls. 

He started texting Derek with additions when he was away during the week. Telling him that he wanted to bake cupcakes that evening and needed new cupcake liners. The non-bleached variety. Because, he informed Derek through a series of long texts with copious links, Stiles may love colors, but he loved the environment even more. 

From there he started adding things he thought would be nice to have around, things for everyone, he rationalized. He noted that the kitchen could use some new kitchen towels. Those thick white ones that bartenders use that have blue stripes down one side. He may have drawn a thank you with a heart underneath his note. 

So he was curious about the lengths Derek would go to for him . When Derek would say no. 

So he started adding small things that he wanted just because. Perhaps not much, not really, things like apples just because he wanted them. Pomegranates too. 

The things always appeared. 

Derek’s place felt more and more like home – like he could just be all the little bits of himself there. All at once, without dividing himself up into appropriate packages, parceling himself to appreciable size. With Derek, he didn’t have to worry about it because Derek already knew everything that had happened and could probably smell the rest. And better yet, Derek apparently liked him anyway. 

**Milk and Cheese**

Whatever the situation was, it started escalating slightly. Stiles would get back for the weekend and Derek’s apartment was increasingly his first stop. 

It was too exciting not to go there. Because there was almost always something for him. Sometimes food, sometimes something useful, sometimes something hideously outrageous. He loved it. Loved the beautiful coffee mill, was thrilled by the bright blue electric kettle. He just might have danced about the kitchen when a package of reeking cheese wrapped in three plastic bags with a bright orange ribbon appeared in the back of the refrigerator. 

For each gift, he told Derek that it was perfect, that it was brilliant, that Derek was amazing. For the cheese, he threw his arms around Derek’s neck and rubbed his cheek against Derek’s – to Derek’s clear surprise. 

He only realized how comfortable he had become hugging Derek, how often he touched him when Scott appeared one day to visit Isaac just as Stiles was throwing his arms around Derek after telling him the at that moment, as far as Stiles concerned, Derek was just about perfect. 

Scott had looked surprised, somewhat stunned, and Stiles felt himself flushing. But before anything could be said, any questions asked, Isaac was shrugging on his jacket and asking if Scott was ready? 

Stiles always assumed that Isaac must have said something, because Scott never mentioned it. Just gave Stiles the occasional odd look during those few weekends during which they were both in Beacon Hill. 

Stiles was relieved, because Scott was. Wonderful. Family. But he still didn’t want to talk about any of it. Didn’t want to discuss Allison, didn’t ask about Stiles’ work with Deaton. 

And without Lydia’s constant presence, Derek became one of the only people he just talked at length around without a filter. Stiles liked college, did well, but it wasn't like he could tell his friends at school what the he did with his weekends. He told boring versions or stories just to make sure they didn't ask beyond the basic 'work was fine?' 

But with Derek Stiles could talk about anything. He told Derek about the whole sordid experience in that awful basement after he woke up screaming on the coach. He started telling Derek at length about his projects, started to laugh about school anecdotes, fill Derek in about people Derek had never met but now knew by name. Started stretching out on the couch where Derek was reading and resting his feet in his lap. 

Around Derek he gushed, talked about anything and everything that crossed his mind at a given time. It was fabulous. He could combine the story of the catastrophe of the latest song with a commentary about how they were almost out of milk. Talk about Pearl’s latest acquisition of eyelash extensions and mention how annoying it was to grind mountain ash on the same breath. 

**Fresh meat**

Stiles started to wonder about what Derek thought his place was in the whole pack thing, within the whole werewolf question, within a scope of romance. Because fuck if Stiles wasn’t starting to dream a little dream and occasionally wish upon a star. 

He tried to go somewhat overboard with the list, almost hoping that Derek would set boundaries. He wrote down that he needed a rabbit's heart (he really did for a spell, but it was still really fucking weird to ask) and the next weekend it was cleaned and available for him. 

For Thanksgiving his junior year, he wrote out an entire list of ingredients for a ‘traditional’ meal and added random things by text over the course of the week. Answered Derek’s inquiries about amounts and brands. When Stiles demanded a fresh turkey, Derek asked how many pounds. 

Derek didn’t miss anything and Stiles spent two days cooking for the pack. The group gripped and bitched about washing dishes, about classes and new jobs, but spent the time smiling at each other. Stiles felt strangely proud when he surveyed the wreckage of the meal and thought he saw his own sentiment reflected in Derek’s face. 

Stiles told Lydia about his confusion and curiosity as they painted each other’s nails the next evening. She snorted inelegantly as they collapsed in the plush cushions of the couch and drank wine while old episodes of Doctor Who ran in the background. She raised her glass at him and told him he needed to ask Derek for a deer. Wasn’t that what werewolve did these days to demonstrate their interest? Ask for or bring bloody things? 

Stiles remembered the rabbit’s heart and blushed, tugged the braid he was working on gently and asked if she thought – in the hypothetical scenario that there was any truth to the deer thing at all – that Derek would bring the thing whole or in ready-to-cook pieces. 

Lydia snickered and declared that in all likelihood, it would be whole. Stiles would have to demonstrate his ability to care for the pack by hacking it to pieces and providing everyone with a venison dinner. 

“Didn’t I do that with a turkey yesterday?” Stiles asked slowly, working on the next braid. 

“Stiles,” Lydia answered, shaking her head carefully so as not to ruin his careful work, “if that were the case, then it’s already a signed and sealed deal between you two. But no, I think it would need to something more than a bird bought from a butcher and unconnected to a freaking holiday. Werewolves seem to be all about the grand gestures.” 

“Deer are grand” Stiles nodded solemnly in agreement. 

“But, before you ask Derek anything,” she added tilting her head at him and narrowing her eyes, “you need to know what you want. Because Stiles, you know better than to ask a question you don’t want to hear the answer to.” 

They watched for a moment as a Dalek waved its suction cup arm about. “I would want the deer,” Stiles finally told her as she refilled his glass. “Even if I do have to chop the thing up myself.” 

“Ah, the things we do for love” Lydia sighed, patted his cheek. “Do you want it now?” she asked tapping his chin with her bright pink nail. He swatted at her petulantly, grinned at her sweetly. “You already play pack mom – are you ready to tie yourself to that position for life if he does bring you a bloody animal?” 

“In for the penny, in for the pound Lydia. You know I couldn’t walk away. Not anymore. I might as well put my money where my mouth is, yada yada.” Stiles dropped his head against the cushions. “Now if only we knew if that’s actually what asking for a deer would mean. What if it isn’t a euphemism Lydia? What if it was just a deer?” 

**You**

Stiles picked at the question in the back of his mind for months. He almost asked for a deer on the list (now wolves howled in pastel colors at the moon), almost texted it after going out with college friends for a drink, almost asked for it when he kissed Derek’s cheek. 

But the question always caught. The ‘what if the he was wrong’ always caught Stiles up. 

Up until his senior year. Just before graduation. When he arrived home on a Friday, threw himself in Derek’s lap, wrapped his arms around his neck, and announced that he had been accepted to San Jose State a their master’s in library and information science and he had a fucking job in Beacon Hill once he graduated. The librarian was retiring and he had the position contingent on his attendance of distance classes and completion of the degree. 

Derek, warm beneath his arms, had asked – actually asked! – “So. You’ve moving back?” 

Stiles stared at him, his breath already coming fast from his elation and – somehow, he was never sure how – declared “I want a deer”. 

Derek’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay. If you want one. I can … do that." 

Stiles nodded. “I think” he said and swallowed, “that Lydia might have been wrong for once. Although I doubt she was really serious either. There was Doctor Who, grooming, and wine. Distractions if ever there have been distractions. What I mean” Stiles rushed onward “is that I want you. Do I need to bring you a deer to prove it?” 

Evidently Stiles still wasn’t asking for too much. He got a deer, much to his consternation, and got Derek, to his continued delight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the point - in case it wasn't obvious - is that Stiles doesn't ever lie in this one with what he says to Derek.
> 
> Derek’s comment about boring people is from Honore de Balzac.
> 
> Salt, Bread, and Wine are given when visiting someone's (new) home for the first time that life may always have savor, that the inhabitants will never know hunger, and so that they will always know joy.

**Author's Note:**

> The first and second chapters are going to be really disperate. A grocery list instead of a rainbow. Shocking, I know.
> 
> If are unfamiliar with Ziggy Stardust, then I highly encourage you to look him up. I would also recommend watching some of the live-video from David Bowie's 1973 shows. His concerts from the early 1970s changed a lot. 
> 
> Also - Bob Marley had a song "The Sun is Shining", which Fatboy Slim remixed as "I'm a Rainbow too".  
> It should be noted that - as far as I am aware - Bob Marley had no public stance on homosexuality. However, he was also part of a religious group with a very clear anti-homosexual stance. Hence, he is often considered a problematic figure among parts of LGBTQ communities.
> 
> If there are glaring mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them.


End file.
